


Simple

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Body Horror, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, Crowley As Raphael (Good Omens), Fallen Angels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 10:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19130578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: “I didn’t mean to,” whispered the Fallen. “I think I asked too many questions.”“Well, me too,” Lucifer purred, his voice sweet and full of tainted honey. “That was all I ever did: ask questions. It’s not fair, is it?” It was a leading question, the answer acrid, but he was right. It wasn’t fair. He didn’t mean to, he didn’t mean to, it wasn’t fair— “I have a job for you. Can you help me?”“What is it?”“It’s simple,” Lucifer whispered. “Easiest thing in the world.”





	Simple

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Inspired by this meta!](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/488551) by the-reading-lemon. 



 Lying on his back in the hard dirt, he stared up at the sky. The night was black and cold, and in the far distance, he could see a sea of shining stars: distant planets, other star systems, moons, and everything else… He’d hung them, each and every one, painstaking work, _craftsmanship_ , and always—

Always away from the Host.

Maybe that was why it was so easy, why it all went wrong, hanging about with the wrong people, maybe that was why his core was empty and aching, why ragged pain assuaged his form. He looked down at himself, took in the raggedness at his edges, the flesh black as obsidian and just as shiny, some of them showing in red. He looked so…

His wings twitched beneath him, complaining of the position he had fallen in, and he sat up, spreading them out. Those, at least, were the same: big, broad, with those feathers, white with burnished red edges…

Too distinctive.

He was…

He didn’t want the Host recognising him. Not now. He’d—

He’d _Fallen_ , and he hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t even expected it, had just—

With a thought, black spread over the surface of his feathers, staining them with the same onyx his flesh was, and he inhaled, his eyes closing shut.

“What a shame,” said a voice ahead of him. It was a soft, mellifluous voice, unhindered by a body to slow it down: this voice was once ethereal, but now it was occult, and there was a sort of many-tongued chatter beneath it, a quiet hiss that came from the command of thousands. “They were pretty, in white and red.”

“Lucifer,” said the Fallen, unable to keep the misery out of his voice, and when he opened his eyes, the Light-Bringer was crouching in front of him in the damp sand, his head tilted as he looked down at him. Sympathy radiated from him, as it always did: soft and gentle, deceptively so, and when he reached out to touch his newly Fallen brother, the latter sighed, leaning into what comfort it offered.

It wasn’t the Host, but it was _someone_.

“That Fall did a number on _you_ ,” Lucifer murmured, and pulled him closer. “Five became four, and four becomes three, hm? Now it’s you and me together, down in the dirt.”

“I didn’t mean to,” whispered the Fallen. “I think I asked too many questions.”

“Well, me _too_ ,” Lucifer purred, his voice sweet and full of tainted honey. “That was all I ever did: ask questions. It’s not fair, is it?” It was a leading question, the answer acrid, but he was _right_. It _wasn’t_ fair. He didn’t mean to, he didn’t _mean_ to, it wasn’t _fair_ — “I have a job for you. Can you help me?”

“What is it?”

“It’s simple,” Lucifer whispered. “Easiest thing in the world.”

“What is it?”

“Oh,” Lucifer said, so full of sympathy that the Fallen felt he could drown in it. “My poor brother. You’ll need a new name. Why don’t I give you one?”

“What’s the job?”

“ _Crawley_ … Sounds about right, with scales like yours.”

“Crawley,” the Fallen repeated. “Lucifer, what’s the job?”

Lucifer smiled, and he smiled like the sun. It wasn’t a smile to be looked directly at, even for a second, and Crawley turned his head away, wincing at the brightness of it. The others, when they Fell, became twisted, but Lucifer… Lucifer just got brighter.

It was later, when that changed, when he got…

But then, at the Beginning, _then_ , he was bright.

“What’s the job?” Crawley asked.

“It’s easy,” Lucifer repeated, and helped him to his feet.

\--

“You need to be made _flesh_ ,” Lucifer murmured, and put his hand on the rough approximation of what we might call Crawley’s back. Crawley hissed at the strange sensation, as his ethereal form gave way to a real _body_ , poured into it like wine is poured into a wine skein. “Look.”

He looked at himself in the still water of the pond they stood before and gagged, turning his head. His hand, scattered over with ugly, black scales, patching over the humanish skin, covered his mouth. He shook his head.

“No?” Lucifer asked in a soft cooing voice, and his hand settled on Crawley’s shoulder, pulling him back against his brother’s chest. Crawley kept his eyes squeezed shut, not looking at the monstrous thing in the waters: pitted and ugly with black scales and flecks of bone that poked out from ill-fitting skin, the snake on his head, with its slick, black scales and mottled spines, and those _eyes_ , so brightly yellow— “Oh, you always did have a preoccupation with the _beautiful_ , didn’t you?”

“Please,” Crawley whispered. “I can’t— I can’t bear to _look_ like this, Lucifer, I hate it—”

“Everyone else is the same,” Lucifer said coaxingly, stroking Crawley’s shoulder. “Dagon has scales like yours, and plenty of the others, they show their corruption like this, just like you.” Lucifer’s fingers stroked the snake’s back, and Crawley heard it hiss: _he_ hissed, it was _him_ , and yet he was separate, as if he was in two parts…

“No,” Crawley said, shuddering, feeling as if he would weep. “No.”

“Why don’t I make you a deal, hm?” Lucifer asked, his voice directly at Crawley’s ear, his fingers still stroking the snake’s back, and making Crawley shiver. “I can funnel your corruption back into you, Crawley, and make you as pretty as I dare… But you’ll _be_ … different. Even with the humans, you’ll be different. There’s a limit to what I can do.”

“No, there isn’t,” Crawley said desperately, and he turned his gaze on his brother, clutching at him without meaning to. “You could always do _anything_ , you said so, always…”

Lucifer smiled. His teeth were so—

 _White_.

“I gave you a deal, little brother,” Lucifer murmured. “You want to take it?”

“Can I—” Crawley’s voice was hoarse, and he stopped, swallowing hard. Lucifer smiled at him, smiled so kindly, and yet his eyes were full of cold, cold light.

“Can you…?”

“I had red hair,” Crawley said, hating how small he sounded, how pathetic. “I had red hair, when I was corporeal, before. I had red hair.”

“You ask a _lot_ , Crawley,” Lucifer said musingly, his voice soft. His eyes were colder than ever.

“I’ll do your job,” Crawley said. “I’ll do it, I will, I’ll do whatever you want, but— _Please_ , Lucifer. I want— I want a little piece of _me_.”

“Aw,” Lucifer murmured, and squeezed the snake. His grip was too tight, and it hurt, it _hurt_ : it squeezed the whole of him, and Crawley cried out, grasping uselessly at his brother’s front as he felt his bones creak, his new flesh bruise, felt _pain_ — “You got a deal,” Lucifer whispered as he let go, and laughed at Crawley’s agony as he made him over again.

\--

Lucifer was gone, and Crawley went clumsy on his knees, unable to work them well enough to stand on two legs. He felt like he didn’t fit in his body, like it was harder to manoeuvre in, but there were no more scales, no more spines… He stopped at the edge of the water, and he looked at himself.

Skin. Smooth, smooth skin, and _red hair_ , oh, red hair, he had his red hair! He touched it, carding a hand through it, and he turned his head to see the little blemish on the side of his face. The snake was there, still, but it was just a little design, just black…

He met his own gaze, and felt the shock hit him. Those big, yellow eyes, that his snake-self had had… _He_ had them, now, his eyes big and bright, with the slit pupil. Hesitating only for a moment, he opened his mouth, and he let his tongue slide out, watched it unfurl, looked at the forked end of it. He concentrated, and it shifted, more like a human’s tongue… Little things. He could do little things, now, little things, except…

He felt—

Fluid, somehow. Like he could just…

And he poured into the water like he was liquid too, and the black scales felt fine, this time, because he was _all_ scales, and it was so _easy_ to move like this, no awkward legs to pilot, no arms…

Oh.

Oh, of course.

\--

Time passed.

He did the job.

It went—

About as well as could have been expected.

\--

“You’ve got— er, that is to say, your hair,” said the angel, Aziraphale, and Crawley looked at him. It was after Eden, and he was stationed to keep watch over Adam and Eve, and their new children: Crawley didn’t have any orders yet, and so he lingered, watching the angel. The angel brought such… _joy_. He seemed so simple, and so sweet: his smiles were bright and easy things, and they made Crawley feel warm, made his heart pang with a sort of sweetness.

Uriel had smiled like that, once upon a time.

She didn’t smile like that anymore, not since the fighting started. Not since the war. Not since…

But maybe that too, had changed. Maybe when Crawley had Fallen, she began to smile again. Maybe she would.

“It’s dreadfully, er, well, I shouldn’t say _nice_ ,” Aziraphale said, “but it’s— Bright, you know. Handsome. One of the archangels used to have hair like that. Er, he… He’s gone now. Gone unto hellfire, they think, what with all the battling. Raphael.”

“Oh,” Crawley said, feigning polite disinterest, and feeling his body lurch with cold, sickly nausea. “Right.”

“But yours,” Aziraphale said earnestly, with just a tiny dash of colour burning pink at his cheeks, “yours is much nicer, I’m sure.”

That hurt, too, but it was a bittersweet pain, and Crawley smiled, laying back as a snake in the grass.

\--

“You like them, don’t you?” Lucifer asked. “The humans?”

“Nah,” Crawley lied. Lying had been a new skill to learn, but he had gotten the hang of it quickly, particularly in conversations with Lucifer. “Not really. Just… I like the air, I s’pose. It’s crowded, down in Hell. I like the sky.”

Lucifer watched him for a long moment, and then nodded. “You’ll stay up here, then,” he said generously. “A field agent.”

Crawley waited. Lucifer’s lips were smiling faintly, but he said nothing, and Crawley asked, finally, “And— and the price?”

“I’ll have another job for you,” Lucifer said, still smiling. “In a while.”

“What job?” Crawley asked, and Lucifer tutted at him, shaking one index finger.

“So many _questions_ , Crawley,” he chided. “A demon can get into trouble, asking too many questions.”

Crawley looked away, and Lucifer laughed and laughed.

\--

No one ever recognised him.

Why should they?

\--

“Crowley,” Aziraphale asked him once, after it had all been and gone.

Crowley was in a pensive mood, thinking about their big body swap, thinking of Gabriel, Michael, Uriel… No smiles for Uriel. Michael, down in Hell, helping kill a demon, so full of revenge, now, so _angry_ , and Gabriel… Aziraphale hated Gabriel. He’d said so, before – well, not in that much _language_ , but he’d let it come across. Aziraphale found Gabriel cloying, overbearing, thought he was stupid.

Crowley had always thought of him as eager, bright, the little brother who wanted too desperately to please.

“ _Shut up and die already_ ,” he’d said. That’d stung, even if it had been meant for Aziraphale.

“Yes, angel?” Crowley asked.

“Do you— Well, not that you, not that you have to tell me, but do you remember your name? You know, from before you… before you Fell?”

Crowley didn’t let anything show in his face. He idly stirred his straw in his cocktail, keeping his gaze blank between his sunglasses. “Why’d you ask?”

“I suppose because I’ve never asked before,” Aziraphale said. “Do you?”

He could tell him, he supposed. If he told him, maybe Aziraphale would let him get closer. It… It hurt, sometimes, the way Aziraphale kept him at arm’s length, the way he wouldn’t let Crowley love him the way Crowley wanted to, wouldn’t let Crowley— not that he wanted to touch him like the humans did. It wasn’t about _sex_.

It was about… companionship. Affection. Love.

If he told him, maybe Aziraphale would let him closer…

And then again, maybe not.

“No,” Crowley lied, bringing his cocktail up to his mouth. “Don’t remember a thing.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). You can send requests [on Tumblr](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask), too. Requests always open. Check out [Fuck Yeah, Gabriel! too](https://fuckyeahgabrielgoodomens.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Remember that [the Tadfield Advertiser](https://tadfield-advertiser.dreamwidth.org/517.html) and the [Good Omens Prompt Meme](https://onthedisc.dreamwidth.org/9084.html) are both up and running, and people should definitely go leave prompts and fills on both!!


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